Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to wireless communications, and more particularly, to a method and an apparatus for an operation based on a power saving mode in a wireless local area network (WLAN).
Related Art
In IEEE 802.11, a power saving mechanism (or power saving mode) may be used to increase the life of a wireless local area network (WLAN) station (STA). An STA operating based on the power saving mode is capable of operating in an awake state or doze state in order to save power. The awake state is a state in which normal operations of the STA, such as frame transmission or reception or channel scanning, are possible. The doze state is a state in which power consumption is drastically reduced to make it impossible to transmit or receive a frame and to perform channel scanning. The STA operating in the power saving mode is usually in the doze state and switches to the awake state if necessary to reduce power consumption.
When the STA is operating for a long time in the doze state, power consumption of the STA is reduced. Accordingly, the life of the STA may increase. However, in the doze state, it is impossible to transmit or receive a frame. Thus, the STA may not stay for a long time in the doze state. When the STA has a pending frame in the doze state, the STA may switch to the awake state to transmit the frame to an AP. However, when the STA is in the doze state and the AP has a pending frame to transmit to the STA, the STA may not receive the pending frame from the AP and does not recognize that the AP has the pending frame. Accordingly, the STA may periodically switch to the awake mode to operate in order to acquire information on whether the AP has a pending frame and to receive the pending frame from the AP.
The AP may acquire information on an awake-mode operation timing of the STA and transmit information on whether the AP has a pending frame according to the awake-mode operation timing of the STA.
Specifically, the STA in the doze state may periodically switch from the doze state to the awake state to receive a beacon signal in order to receive information on whether there is a frame to receive from the AP. The AP may notify whether there is a frame to transmit to each STA based on a traffic indication map (TIM) included in the beacon frame. The TIM may be used to indicate the presence of a unicast frame to be transmitted to the STA, and a delivery traffic indication map (DTIM) may be used to indicate the presence of a multicast frame/broadcast frame to be transmitted to the STA.